The knife.
He felt it again — the sharp, burning entry of it, the specific weight of something real passing through his chest — and immediately... he was sitting upright with both hands pressing flat against his sternum and his breath coming in fast and wrong.
Nothing.
No blood. No wound.
He pressed harder.
Still nothing.
He looked around and noticed that... that was not Cedric's office.
White walls. A narrow bed with proper hospital linen. A window with the curtain half-drawn. A stand beside the bed with a drip line running from it to the back of his hand.
He looked at his hand.
The needle.
He winced and pulled his hand back instinctively and the sharp tug of it made him hiss.
"What—" he started.
The door opened and Cedric walked in.
